Skye Papers

A dreamy and experimental portrait of young Black artists in the 1990s London underground scene, whose existence is threatened by the rise of state surveillance.

Twentysomething and restless, Skye flits between cities and stagnant relationships until she meets Scottie, a disarming and disheveled British traveller, and Pieces, an enigmatic artist living in New York. The three recognise each other as kindred spirits—Black, punk, whimsical, revolutionary—and fall in together, leading Skye on an unlikely adventure across the Atlantic.

They live a glorious, subterranean existence in 1990s London: making multimedia art, throwing drug-fuelled parties, and eking out a living by busking in Tube stations, until their existence is jeopardised by the rise of CCTV and policing.

In fluid and unrelenting prose, Jamika Ajalon's debut novel explores youth, poetry, and what it means to come to terms with queerness. Skye Papers is an imaginative, episodic group portrait of a transatlantic art scene spearheaded by people of colour—and of the fraught, dystopian reality of increasing state surveillance.